Category Archives: Other Apps Reviews

Privacy Issues with Smartphone Apps

Smartphone apps have become important parts of our daily routines. We might take a look at one app to plan out the week based on the weather, check news, sports scores or even look at our security cams guarding our homes. With many of these smartphone apps, there’s a third, fourth and possibly fifth person looking into the data that is being transferred back and forth and you may have unknowingly invited them to do so.

This is why it is so important to first know what you are agreeing to when handing over permissions and secondly, knowing that your permissions are being given to a trusted company only. You might be surprised to learn what can actually be gathered and performed on your smartphone by outside sources that you give permissions to. You many already know that you can be tracked, but did you know that phone calls can be placed from your number?

With lawsuits still pending for some of the big named companies and their improper distribution of their customer’s data, you may want to be more cautious of the apps you give permissions to. The Wall Street Journal, warned of this late last year and since then companies like Apple, Pandora and Google have seen days in court over the issue. The problem isn’t just with big companies though, but with the apps that they serve. One app that was distributed on the iPhone App Store gathered data from users and sent it to advertising agencies with the users ever knowing.

The only way to truly keep your smartphone secure is to never turn it on it would seem, but that is not necessarily so. Just be aware of what you are agreeing to before you hit ok and only use apps that are from trusted sites. The app market is fairly new, so some of this can be expected. Some of it may have been unintentional, but it appears that customers will have to give apps either no attention or the benefit of the doubt.